"What’s so interesting about the movie is that, it seems, K Balachander had made this movie out of a deep sense of guilt" ❤️

“Three Boys & Two Girls Come out of their Homes and Plan a Suicide Pact”

When the legendary Director K Balachander did a Movie because of a Deep Sense of Guilt!

Summer Holidays | College Days

#reflections #memoriesfromdiaries

8th May 1999

Well, when I look back at this particular diary entry of mine, written more than a quarter century ago, (26 years ago), I feel quite nostalgic, you see! 😊

It was college-time summer holidays for us.

I had read a few books on this day, watched a TV serial and a movie as well.

The book – I don’t remember, but the TV Serial is Shaktimaan and the movie is K Balachander’s Vaaname Ellai! 😊

Back then, during our summer holidays, Doordarshan was our one and only OTT, our DTH, our Cable TV, our IPTV, our YouTube all rolled into one! 😊

In fact the very mention of the name Doordarshan brings a rush of memories!

For those of us in the India of the 80s and 90s, it wasn’t just a television channel; it was the television channel. 😊 It was our sole window to the world of feature films, TV serials, cricket, and movie songs.

So on this particular summer holiday, I did some reading, taking notes on them in the process.

Later, watched Shaktimaan, one of my childhood superheroes! 😊

Well, the Shaktimaan TV serial revolves around Shaktimaan, the superhero who is endowed with superhuman abilities, by means of which he fights against evil forces. His alter ego is Pandit Gangadhar the witty photographer.

In fact, Shaktimaan could be said to have inaugurated the superheroes genre in India.

Before that, we all had our quota of exposure to superheroes only through Western characters like Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man.

That’s when Shaktimaan stepped in and filled the missing gap, providing a homegrown hero who embodied Indian values and cultural ethos, thereby making the superhero concept more relatable and accessible to children and adults alike across India.

In short, Shaktimaan was a cultural touchstone for a generation of children who grew up in the 1990s. 😊

Then, listened to the mellifluous patriotic Indian song, “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara” a song that promotes unity in diversity.

Then, I watched Vaaname Ellai by legendary director K. Balachander. Back then, Doordarshan used to screen National Award-winning films on DD National on a regular basis.

On this particular day, DD National had screened “Vaaname Ellai” which translated to, “The Sky is the Limit”.

I had given my own short capsule summary of the movie in my diary entry for memory-sake!

So here goes the story in detail - 😊

Vaaname Ellai is a poignant story of five individuals from diverse backgrounds who are quite disillusioned with their lives.

Since the five of them face a lot of personal struggles, betrayals, corruption, caste discrimination, and abuse, they collectively decide to end their lives by committing suicide together.  

However, instead of immediately ending their lives, they make a pact to live together happily for 100 days - determined to experience happiness and fulfilment before their planned end.

During this period, they form a unique bond, share their joys and sorrows, and try to find meaning to their existence in their ‘remaining days’.

The arrival of an abandoned baby into their lives and their interactions with differently-abled individuals who lead fulfilling lives begins to have its intended effect on the five of them.

They now give a re-think on their decision to end their lives, and ultimately, they find a reason to embrace life again.

What’s so interesting about the movie is that, it seems, K Balachander had made this movie out of a deep sense of guilt!

A sense of guilt that had haunted him because of the astounding box office success of his earlier film titled, Ek Duuje Ke Liye (1981).

This film had depicted a tragic love story with the lovers committing suicide, that, sadly had a cascading effect on the audience, resulting in many people imitating the suicide in the film.

Then it so happened that, the famed psychiatrist Lakshmi Vijayakumar had exhorted KB to make a film showing the thoughts of suicide in a positive light - to go through struggle, but overcome it and realise that life is worth living.

And the net result is Vaaname Ellai!

Well, that brings us to the field called cognitive neuroscience!

Cognitive Neuroscience is quite an interesting field of study that deals with –

How we perceive the world and interact with it!

How we acquire and retain information!  

How we understand and produce communication!

How we make our life choices, etc.

In his seminal book on the subject titled, Flicker: Your Brain on Movies, Jeffrey Zacks observes that –

If you are interested in what goes on in your head when you watch a movie, there is a science base that is very informative, says Zacks.

Interestingly he also teaches a seminar called “The Cognitive Neuroscience of Film.”

He adds to say that -

Sitting in a theatre, it is not at all uncommon to experience bodily responses - to feel as if you are preparing to move, perhaps even squirming a little in your seat.

What is going on? Your eyes and ears are telling you that something exciting is happening in front of you and your brain is preparing you to react.

Of course, you know it’s just a movie. Movies evolved to take advantage of the brains we have. Our tendency to want to respond physically to them highlights this.

William James described the tendency of visual images to evoke motor actions more than a hundred years ago, using the term ideomotor actions –

“Wherever movement follows unhesitatingly and immediately the notion of it in the mind, we have ideo-motor action.”

These days, we distinguish between two different ways in which an action can be associated with an event in the world.

We can describe these as two different rules that people are built to follow. I will call these the mirror rule and the success rule.

The mirror rule says “Do what you see.”

Everyday life is replete with examples of the mirror rule, though we often don’t notice them. Imagine that you and I are sitting across from each other at a desk.

If I cross my arms or legs, you are much more likely to cross yours. Once you start looking for them, the effects are dramatic and actually pretty funny.

You can experience this feeling at the movies, too. In Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, the title character (one of several played by Peter Sellers) has an involuntary habit of snapping Nazi salutes when he gets excited.

You can almost feel your own arm going up. Watch The Natural, and it’s hard not to feel yourself swinging a virtual bat along with Robert Redford.

But for now let me mention one action that is especially subject to the mirror rule: laughing.

In one study conducted at the University of Indiana in the 1960s, researchers asked people to listen to jokes either alone or in groups. The group audiences laughed more.

Interestingly, they didn’t rate the jokes as any funnier; perhaps they laughed more not because they thought the jokes were any funnier, but as a direct result of seeing or hearing their fellow audience members yukking it up.

The entertainment industry is definitely wise to this, whether or not producers can cite the relevant experimental studies.

Sitcoms have been filmed in front of live audiences for 5 decades because producers know that audiences at home laugh more when they hear a live audience laughing.

In fact, when a live audience does not laugh sufficiently, canned laughter will often be added to the soundtrack. And it works: People laugh more when a laugh track is added.

Why are we built to follow the mirror rule? We are an intensely social species, often dependent on other humans for our survival, and mirroring probably provides several benefits for fitting our own behaviour in with that of others.

This sort of coordination is present across a wide phylogenetic swath. For example, if one of a flock of shorebirds takes off, others will tend to imitate it.

They do this so that if one bird detects an approaching predator, the whole flock can quickly evacuate. Imitation is also an efficient way to learn new skills.

In short, our behaviour often follows the mirror rule, such that when we see an action performed we have a tendency to perform the same action ourselves. The mirror rule is exactly “monkey see, monkey do.”

Now to the second rule:  the success rule. The success rule says, “Do what has worked.”

It is obvious why we would be built to follow the success rule - doing what works is better than the alternative.

You can feel the success rule working powerfully in situations where you need to react fast. When a traffic light turns red and your foot presses the brake seemingly before you could think of it, that’s the success rule!

The mirror rule and the success rule describe how what we see can determine what we do, 

signs off Zacks!

Fascinating ain’t it? 😊 

Memories to continue...

[Image Courtesy: IMDB]